Rental Cars South Africa - History of South Africa

South Africa’s modern history has been famously traumatic leaving a legacy that continues to blight this otherwise prosperous African country.

When the Portuguese first rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 16th century, the area was sparsely populated by semi-nomadic Khoisan, but the Dutch East India Company soon set up a victualing station and prospered until the British annexed the ‘Cape Town’ settlement (1790) and rapidly began importing ‘white settlers’. At the same time, the rise of Shaka’s great Zulu nation to the north caused a massive southward coastal displacement of native tribes, and the two opposing races began their chequered history of clashing.

The Great Trek – a migration north of disgruntled Dutch Boers (farmers), was a significant event that forged the new Afrikaner ‘volk’. They first clashed with the Zulus in Natal, resulting in bloody battles and the eventual demise of Shaka, before forming their own Zuid Afrikaner Republic with Pretoria as its capital.

The discovery of diamonds in Kimberley (1850s) saw an influx of prospectors and created wealth, but it was the discovery of gold near present-day Johannesburg that prompted the British to wrestle the ‘Republic’ from the defiant Afrikaners in the three-year Boer war. Shortly after, in 1910, the Union of South Africa (under an all white govt) was formed, with semi-autonomous status from Britain.

However, the determined Afrikaner National Party seized power in 1948 and set about creating elaborate apartheid laws, ruthlessly subjugating the native population. By now, the African National Congress (ANC) was already 15 years old, but suffered an enormous setback when many of its leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were rounded up and tried for treason in 1967.

The country’s fate rapidly declined as it was forced out of the Commonwealth and suffered crippling economic sanctions and increasing restlessness at home, until succumbing and unbanning the ANC in 1990, releasing Mandela and negotiating a government of national unity resulting in the historic 1994 elections which swept Mandela and the ANC to a landslide victory.

Since then Mandela has retired, but there has been significant headway to re-balance past wrongs and a genuine attempt to unite all races of this country.